


The Place and the Fire of Our Side

by EdnaV



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Bus from Tadfield, Holding Hands, I'm so soft too, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), M/M, Post-Almost Apocalypse (Good Omens), Quote: We're On Our Own Side (Good Omens), Quote: You can stay at my place (Good Omens), Soft Aziraphale (Good Omens), Soft Crowley (Good Omens), of course I'm not over episode 3, they had a long week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-10-04
Packaged: 2020-11-23 22:23:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20897072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EdnaV/pseuds/EdnaV
Summary: “You can stay at my place, if you like.”It's not a lie, Crowley owns that flat.It's not the whole truth — that flat has never really been his place. It's the place where he sleeps when he's in London and he doesn't feel like crashing at the Ritz.The flat is not his place. It's notthe place.The placewas the bookshop.The bookshop — it burned down.--------After an Almost-Apocalypse, some things have to change — or just be discovered again.





	The Place and the Fire of Our Side

**Author's Note:**

> Because I can't get over how Michael Sheen moves his eyes in that scene. 
> 
> Anyway, there's always space for yet another bus-from-Tadfield fic. Right?

The night is turning cold — the summer is coming to an end.

_“You can stay at my place, if you like.”_

It's not a lie, Crowley owns that flat.

It's not the whole truth — that flat has never really been _his place_. It's the place where he sleeps when he's in London and he doesn't feel like crashing at the Ritz.

The flat is not his place. It's not _the place_.

_The place_ was the bookshop.

The bookshop. The office in eastern corner — _will the angel ever get over that first assignment? Nah._ Crowley sprawling on the couch, Aziraphale prim and properin his armchair.

The wine. The scotch. Biscuits and hot chocolate for the angel, sometimes, and an eyeroll and a half-smile every time he pours the demon a ten-o-clock-in-the-morning stiff drink.

The bookshop — it burned down. Collapsed on itself, crumbled into a pile of ashes and cinders and dust. Like Aziraphale seems to be crumbling right now — his polite smile into a frown, his blue eyes no longer open wide but slowly closing to rein in the tears; even his shoulders are almost hunching down.

Not that Crowley is faring much better.

_“I am not sure that my side would like that_._”_

It's almost too much for Crowley. Not Aziraphale's words, but the glimpse of hope as he listens to the proposal, and the wave of despair when he replies — that is almost too much to bear.

_I beg you. Don't leave me. Not again._

_Or maybe you just don't see it. You're so clever, but sometimes you're so stupid, angel. Maybe I have to tell you, once again._

_ Then you will decide. It's up to you. Always has been. Always will be. _

_ Hamlet was a success — but now let's see if we can make a funny one for ourselves._

_Ourselves._ That's always been _the place_ — back from the start, from the Garden.

_“You don't have a side anymore. Neither of us do. _We're on our own side_.”_

_Do you see it?_

He does.

Aziraphale doesn't even listen when Crowley talks about Agnes Nutter's prophecy.

He's thinking. He's reliving six thousand years. Taking stock of every minute, with an angelic memory.

Crowley signals the bus to stop.

Aziraphale makes his choice.

The choice is made as Crowley is getting on the bus, while Crowley's mind is overtaken by the problem _where __the Heaven __is a free seat on this b__lessed __thing?_

Crowley sees the blessed free seat.

While he's stumbling towards it, Crowley thinks of his flat.

His flat, which is a mess.

Satan, the bucket is still there.

_The Holy Water. That day in St. James's Park, I was afraid that I'd never see him again. That night in Soho, the thermos, we were terrified, we couldn't hold each other's gaze._

There's the astronomy book that he gutted — it could be worse, but it still makes the living room look like a teenager's bedroom.

_“I'm going away, angel,” and “Did you go to Alpha Centauri?” And when he told me that I was an angel, once — did he remember that I hung those stars?_

Crowley gets to the blessed free seat.

He reviews every corner of his flat. The decor, if one may call it so. As tacky as the bookshop _— the bookshop, __it__ burned down, it's gone_ — was cosy.

The statue.

_Oh, no._

_He's going to see the statue._

_ And the lectern._

Crowley tries to keep it cool.

Crowley gulps.

Crowley sits down — he's exhausted, and yet his brain keeps on going, it's thinking what Aziraphale might deduce from the artworks — if one may call them so — in his flat.

Crowley feels like he's about to self-combust. It would be just yet another fire, after the bookshop, after the Bentley — and after Aziraphale's sword, who had made him feel as if they were both on that airstrip and back at the beginning, at the start, in the Garden.

In the Garden. On the Wall. Crowley had slithered up and stood next to Aziraphale.

Aziraphale sits down, next to Crowley.

Aziraphale rests his hand on Crowley's hand.

Aziraphale doesn't even look at Crowley. He just sits there, prim and proper and almost a bit stiff — though the latter might be just because of the bus seat, as rigid as that armchair in the bookshop was plushy.

The bookshop — itburned down, back in London, just a few hours ago.

And on this bus, tonight, Aziraphale is holding Crowley's hand in his own hand.

Then Crowley turns his hand. It's almost an instinct — he's too tired to fight it.

Their palms are touching.

_They had shaken hands in the bookshop, eleven years ago. _ _“__We'll be Godfathers, of sort.__”__ “Godfathers. Well, I'll be damned.” “It's not too bad, when you get used to it.” _

He had joked — he had never gotten used to it, to the Fall, to being cut off from Heaven. But now he will never be cut off — Aziraphale has decided, it's _their side_, and he will never Fall from _their side_.

The fingers entwine.

Crowley wonders if he could discorporate there and then. He'd like to play it cool, but he's too tired, he's faced Satan and the Apocalypse and held together his Bentley — it burned down: that too — from London to Tadfield through the Dread Sigil Odegra also known as the M25, and Aziraphale is holding his hand, and _he__'s__ seen it, he's decided, it's _our side_ now_. So Crowley turns his hand, and he's trembling like a leaf.

Aziraphale takes Crowley's hand in both of his hands. He almost cradles it, keeps it steady — or whatever passes for “steady” on a bus that's pushing 80 mph in the middle of nowhere in the Oxfordshire countryside.

Crowley feels Aziraphale's signet ring. It's so much harder than those soft hands, but it doesn't hurt — it just reminds Crowley that it's real, Aziraphale is at his side, he's chosen _their side_, and he's holding him in his elegantly manicured hands. Those perfectly manicured hands — a few hours ago they were wielding a flaming sword against Satan Himself — _those __flame__s,__ m__uch brighter__ than the fire that burned down the bookshop__, more scorching than the heat that Crowley imagined away in the Bentley _— and now they're holding a bit of Crowley, raising it to touch his lips, kissing it softly.

Aziraphale looks at Crowley. Not the usual coy glance, not that glance of a schoolgirl who's tempting the demon to tempt her. He's looking at Crowley without flinching. He's smiling and savouring a victory, defying Heaven and Hell, and not apologising for any of it.

_“__Our side, indeed_,_”_ he says. _“At your place.”_

He looks so strong. Yet his is voice is shaking, somehow.

_“_ _It took me so long, and yet you waited for me. I am sorry. Please—_ _”_

_ “_ _Don't._ _”_

_ “P__lease, Crowley. Forgive me._ _”_

He looks so soft.

_“_ _I forgive you, angel. You finally got it, right?_ _”_

_“_ _Our side._ _”_

He sounds so soft, yet the core of his voice is adamant — he's chosen his place: at Crowley's side.

_“__Yes_,_”_ says Crowley.

Aziraphale rests his head on Crowley's shoulder.

Crowley rests his head on Aziraphale's.

_Tonight the flat will do. _

Tonight the flat won't be _j__ust a __place_.

The flat will be _their_ place, tonight.

The night feels a bit warmer, as if a new flame had just sparked.

**Author's Note:**

> Don't be shy, make me smile, leave a comment!


End file.
